Engineering TV has posted some interesting video of a new kit developed by QinetiQ, the company that makes the Talon robots. It's called the ROCK Kit and includes everything you need to turn a Bobcat skid-steer loader into a teleoperated robot. The target customer is the military, who could save a lot of money by getting cheap, mass produced Bobcats and turning them into IED robots. According to Dr. William Ribich:

Other companies have roboticized individual pieces of earth-moving equipment, but until now, no one has created a universal kit that can quickly remotely control any Bobcat SJC-equipped loader used in the rough manner the military requires

Sure, it's great for creating instant, low-cost telerobotics for handling oversized IEDs but we can think of all sorts of cool uses for a full sized robot like this. We're guessing they aren't planning to send us a review unit any time soon though. For more details on the QinetiQ press release.